Scarlet Strings Tie Us Together
by Whilom
Summary: A day in the life of the Winchesters.


**Scarlet Strings Tie Us Together** by Whilom

Dean gets up to the sound of the bedside clock flipping its numbers to read 8:00. Sam gets up to Dean slapping his butt, hollering, "I'm taking all the water, princess," and then running into the bathroom and cackling in the shower as if Sam had actually been up to race him for it.

They eat breakfast at the diner, Sam's hair still clinging wetly to his neck, Dean perking up just from the smell of caffeine in the air. They slide into a booth with practiced ease, order without looking at the menu. Dean curls one hand around his coffee mug and savors like it's a religious experience. Sam absently toys with the edges of the newspaper folded up on the table, but his eyes are still creased with sleep and he fiddles with an empty straw wrapper instead of opening the paper up to read. He likes waking up slow, letting all systems get up to speed on their own time. Dean likes waking up zero to sixty with some coffee to fuel the way.

They're not really morning people. Not night-owls, either. They swap around, sometimes kick-start ready by 6:00 a.m., sometimes unable to pry their eyelids open until the sun's almost setting. Depends on what they're hunting. They adapt, but the rest of the world doesn't have a name for that.

Dean inhales his eggs, liberally sprinkling salt and pepper over the yellow yolks, makes stabs at Sam's pancakes that are blocked except when Sam purposefully looks away and Dean steals a bite. Maple-syrup sweet mixes up with the taste of bacon on his tongue. He grins and Sam laughs, motioning at something Dean has stuck in his teeth. He plays it up, slipping into an exaggerated drawl like a hillbilly, until Sam kicks him under the table and finally unfolds the newspaper.

They divide it up, one taking headlines and news, the other scanning obituaries. They don't kick each other under the table or put salt in each other's drinks. Their faces are narrow and their eyes are sharp, tallying up the possibilities, discarding the pages that don't mean anything to them. At the end, there's a wreck of plates painted with syrup and yolk, coffee spills and ketchup stripes, a soggy mess of napkins balled up where Sam spilled his juice, and one napkin kept clean but covered with pen strokes, detailing names, places, times, ages.

This Sam keeps, tucks it away in his pocket while Dean takes the bill to the register, pays for their full stomachs and their sticky mess with a wink and a smile. The waitress blushes but Sam doesn't even have to roll his eyes. It's habit with Dean and they're not sticking around long enough for it to matter and she's cute but Dean doesn't have that glint in his eye and he and Dean both know it. The waitress doesn't, because she scrawls down her number and slides it over and Dean takes it anyway, raising an eyebrow that Sam has to smirk at, and they both nod their thanks and leave.

They both have napkins in their pockets with names and numbers and bellies that are full and shins that are bruised.

It's good, enough that Dean goes willingly to the library when Sam points at it on the street, slides the Impala into a parking space and gives her a last pat on the hood before going through the double doors to sit with dim lights and dusty books while Sam huffs and mutters to himself, making connections Dean could never see, his hair swinging in his eyes. Dean swears that Sam's hair starts to curl the minute he gets around books.

Then there's victory, a breakthrough. Sam's muttering dries up the closer he gets to the heart, the meat, until it's completely silent, just the crackling of pages and the shuffle of books. Dean's useless at this point, providing Sam with pens when he gestures for them, stacking away the books Sam's finished with, touching Sam's back as he walks past just to make sure the kid hasn't stopped breathing with all the pent-up excitement. Then Sam sits back and his face isn't satisfied or glowing but sharp instead, like he sees his prey caught in his trap and he's waiting to release it, knows it won't break free before he wants it to. He sketches his hands over his notes so Dean can see what he sees, draws lines in the air, dark figures that don't surprise them, horrors that stir their blood but don't chill it.

"What do we need?"

"Iron. Holy water. Salt and matches."

Dean flicks his Zippo lighter and they grin, ready to burn something. Then it's back to the car, the great black beast that's as wild as they are, but good, as good as they are, too. It carries in its belly the weapons of their trade, the knives and crucifixes, the shotguns and holy water.

They drive around, asking questions to confirm what they already know, making nice with the civilians whose lives they're about to save. Sam is the gentle, sympathetic one, because (Dean thinks) he always liked being polite and giving a straight answer when he could and they don't do that anymore with the life they lead, can't, can't be too honest or too careful, and it wears on Sam, who always drew his lines so straight when Dean drew them freehand.

It puts Dean in a mood, draws a dark cloud over his head, and he wishes that Sam didn't feel like oil during those times when they pretend to fit in with the people of the white-picket-fence variety, slipping away from him to slither between the cracks where Dean can't follow and soak in to the normal life he always wanted (but now he says he doesn't, he claims, he _promises_ he doesn't).

Sam picks up on it (of course he does, _of course_ he does) and gives Dean absent-minded pats on his shoulder, walks closer, keeps asking his opinion. Dean shrugs it off, grunts his answers, won't meet Sam's eyes, until they finish up with their questions, head back to the motel to load up their gear, drive out to the edge of the woods where the beastie of the week is about to meet its match.

Then Dean nears Sam like a magnet, gradually getting closer and closer until Sam's tripping over him every time he turns around and their fingers tangle in the trunk when they reach for the same weapon.

"Sammy," Dean says, and Sam hasn't called him out for being a parasite, never calls him out for it, and Dean is silently grateful but can't bring himself to tell Sam just yet.

"Here, take some extra iron rounds. Never know when you might need 'em."

Sam's words are quiet and calming. Dean nods and lets his fingernails scrape a little at Sam's palm when he takes the bullets. The corner of Sam's mouth quirks up and Dean remembers when Sam used to be so ticklish as a kid, asking Dean to trace letters and animals on his palm so Sam could fall asleep with that gentle, tickly feeling of having someone watching over him, not with the cradling of a mother or the firmness of a father, but a melding of the two, the fond exasperation of a brother.

He keeps the memory for a moment, folds it like silk in his mind and then wraps it as a talisman around his wrist, something to remind him what he's protecting and to fuel his fire when things get tough.

His gun is solid in his hand and Sam is solid at his back. They move forward in the dark and Dean feels Sam's movements as if there's a scarlet string running through their chests, connecting them. It grounds him, lets him sink his feet lower in the turf, keep his stance loose as they move through the trees. It's what helps him know when to point and shoot, when to shove Sam to the side and then accept the favor when the monster swings too close.

When they're done, a breeze stirs up the pungent smoke, makes the dying embers flare up one last time. Sam's face flickers in the shadows so all Dean can see is the sharp line of his jaw, his cheekbones, the soft curve of his mouth. Dean's face hides in the dark so all Sam can see is the glitter of his eyes, dark pebbles set in the hollows of the sockets.

"Hey."

Sam nudges Dean's shoulder and Dean nudges him back, then their faces split into white smiles, freakish in the dark, and their talk is playful as they head back, filling the spaces beneath the pines with taunts and jabs. They get in the car that's blacker than night and drive away, cocooned in its growling belly.

Dean falls asleep with a smear of dirt lining his forehead and crusting his hair, face cradled in a pillow that smells like bleach and Sam's sweat from last night's nightmare. Sam falls asleep with his socked feet hanging off the bed, in a t-shirt that needs to be washed (_but Dean won't man up and do the laundry_), and an Indian burn on his arm because _what's wrong with bubble gum toothpaste, Dean?_

Tomorrow Dean will wake up with Sam's smelly shirt shoved into his face. Sam will laugh in the shower until Dean cuts up Sam's shirt like a snowflake and threatens to go after Sam's hair next. They'll make amends with waffles.

They're very happy.


End file.
